Competition
by Christoph Marand
Summary: Two months after the Fischer job, the remnants of the team have received a new contract. Meant as sequel fic, with attempts to follow the general form of the film. Sorry for the huge amount of exposition in the middle- it is a heist, after all.
1. Chapter 1

On a rainy morning in early April, Arthur sat alone in the sitting room of a rental home in Colorado. Under normal circumstances, he would be watching the news with a cup of coffee, waiting for everyone else to get up. That said, today, the circumstances were, in fact, normal. He was usually the first one up. Sleep did not come easily to him, or to others in his profession. Over time, diving made the subconscious less ready to emerge naturally. But he rarely used the device to artificially trigger dreams. So, he woke up early, watched the news, drank his coffee, and sat by the phone waiting for a call he knew would never come.

"Any good news?" asked the house's only female resident, Ariadne. Arthur turned to her, not having heard her come in.

"You're up early. Couldn't sleep?"

"Oh, I slept well. I just thought you might want to see this." She hefted her laptop. "I got a message. A job."

Arthur's mouth went a little flatter, the closest thing to a frown he ever gave. "Ari, we just got off of the worst job possible. I don't think we're ready for something right now."

She huffed. "It's been two months since the inception job. We're all bored out of our skulls. Why do you not want to do a job?"

"The usual gap between jobs is about a month, generally so that the team can recover. It's not an easy thing we do. That last one, though… I don't know if we're ready to take on another job."

"Could you do it?" Her question was pointed. Arthur seemed to waver for a minute, then said, "Yeah. I could. Do you know about Eames?"

"He's the one who posted the want ad."

At this Arthur stopped, fuming. "He what?" That was one of the rules: Stay under the radar. Once they started openly announcing the fact that the best and most infamous extraction team was active, all hell would break loose. Supposedly.

Ariadne scoffed. "Oh, please. You can't claim you aren't bored too. Don't blame Eames for trying to get a break from monotony. Yes, he has his sidelines. I have my classes. But do you really want to sit in this house all day, waiting for Cobb to call?"

This shook him to the core. Was it really that bad? Seconds later, he answered: yes. "Do you think he'll ever come back?"

"After all he went through? No. He wants to be a father to his children. Don't begrudge him that. Inception was his last job."

Arthur thought a moment. Was it really worth it to sit here and do nothing, or did he want back, with all the dangers and possibilities? And there, he decided. "Alright, show me the message."

She smiled briefly, then opened her computer. With a few keystrokes, she brought up an email, sent via anonymous proxy server.

I HAVE FOUND MYSELF IN NEED OF A VERY SPECIFIC TYPE OF SECURITY. IF LEGALITY IS NO BARRIER, THAN PRICE IS NO OBJECT. IF INTERESTED, PLEASE GO TO THE 5TH FLOOR OF THE B.O.A. BUILDING IN DENVER ON APRIL 10TH AT 2:00. ASK FOR MR. GERALD SMITH.

Arthur sat, unmoved, planning the meeting already. It was two days from now, but they would have to move quickly. Ariadne seemed unnerved, though.

"Art, this is kinda cryptic. You'd think they'd send a bit more information to go on."

"No, they wouldn't," said Art, in the tone he had used most often when teaching. "Services like ours require anonymity, run on it. Just another bit of paradoxical architecture. We run on information, but we survive by not having it. Just comes with the territory."

At that moment, a thin man with a shrewd face walked in, apparently having just woken up. Unlike Arthur, who drank coffee out of habit, Eames seemed to use it like fuel. He required caffeine nearly constantly before noon to wake up, and was rarely fully conscious until then. Today, however, his second stop (after the coffee machine) was a chair in the den next to Arthur and Ariadne. And, for once, seemed fully wake at eight in the morning. "Finally hearing about our little plan, are we?" he said by way of greeting, though in his normal ironic tone. "Oh, and don't give me that shit about 'laying low'. I'm bored."

"Eames, you should have told us you were going to do this…" Arthur began, but was cut off.

"And gotten what, out of you? 'Oh, we aren't ready, we need to lay low'. Even if you were just going to quit, I'm not."

Arthur managed to pick back up the thread of thought after having it stepped on. "Thanks anyway. We seem to have a job right as I'm ready for it."

This seemed to quiet the normally-talkative Eames for the moment, out of sheer surprise. "Ah. Well, then. Let's get planning, shall we?"


	2. Chapter 2

At precisely 1:55 p.m. on April 10th, Arthur stepped into Denver's Bank of America building in his usual crisp suit and tie. He rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, and approached the harried-looking woman at the desk.

"I'm here to see Gerald Smith. I'm his 2:00" said Arthur in his best business tone.

"Your name, then?" she replied, not bothering to look up.

"I'm an associate of Mr. Cobb."

At this, she turned near white, only tinged by the green light from the solitaire game on her computer screen. After a few seconds, she recovered enough to fumblingly hit a button on her phone and grab the receiver. "Mr. Smith, sir, your two o'clock is here….Yes, right here, at my desk….Yes, sir." She put the handset down on its cradle. "Sir, if you could please go to office 546, please. Down the right-hand hallway, last door on the left."

"Thank you very much, ma'am."

And with that, Arthur walked down the hall, found the office, and entered. He memorized the interior out of habit- expensive carpet, leather furniture, a large mahogany desk- whoever used the office paid well to make it feel like a high-rent space. The man sitting at the desk didn't hurt either. He was lean, rangy, with short salt-and-pepper hair. He looked up upon hearing the door open, and saw Arthur walk in.

"Hmmmmm….. Well come in, sit down. I was hoping Mr. Cobb himself would come, but I can understand his reasons for sending you."

"I doubt it, Mr. Smith. He's retired. I admit I used his name purely to get past the receptionist. However, I was his partner for several years and I now lead his team."

"Oh, well. I had heard from my employer to get Cobb's team for a job, so, I guess, you'll do."

"What kind of job do you want done, exactly?" Arthur asked, his usually long patience wearing thin. "I'm sure you're a busy man, and I have other things to do today. Can we move along? What kind of 'security' do you think we provide?"

"Oh, please drop the act. I know what you do. Your team specializes in subconscious security with an emphasis on removing it and exploring the results. I have a job, a simple extraction, and I want the best for it. Are you in?"

"Can you give me any information before I sign my team on? The name of the mark, perhaps?"

"Of course I can provide information. As to the name of the mark, I'm sure you know why I can't give you that." Arthur nodded. "But I can tell you who you will be working for. Fischer Enterprises"

Arthur stopped dead. He managed to cover his reaction just in time; it wouldn't do to give away _that_ piece of information. "The energy conglomerate?"

"Oh, more than that now. The company has branched out recently. And it needs a service done that you can provide. Easily, if rumors are to be trusted."

"Extraction is easy enough, provided we can get the mark alone and unmissed for a few hours."

"So I've heard. So, are you in?"

Arthur thought a minute. Was a supposedly easy job, potentially well-paying, worth the potential risk of a run-in with Fischer's company? With, potentially, Fischer himself? But he was curious- what did Fischer want that required an extraction team?

"On one condition- I need to get my team here before you reveal any more.

"No need to go far. They're downstairs. They walked in with you."

"You don't miss anything, do you?"

"Oh, I do, just not often." the new employer with a lopsided grin.


	3. Chapter 3

Twenty minutes later, Arthur, Eames, and Ariadne were all in the office. After meeting in the lobby and discussing (in hushed tones) the possible risks and rewards of the job at hand, they had agreed to follow it through. As they said to the man behind the mahogany desk.

"Alright, we're in." said Arthur. What's the job?

"Honestly, I don't know. I'm not the one setting it up; my job was to find the team, which I have done. You're going to speak with my employer, to find out specifics." Immediately after he finished, the secretary walked in. "Please tell him we're on their way." said Mr. Smith. The woman then turned and hurried out. "Okay, here we go."

He rose out of his chair and walked to the door, motioning the others to exit. After everyone was out, he led them down the hall and into an elevator, and pressed the button for the top floor. They rode in the small box in complete silence, the unknown filling the remaining space. A small, hummed tune sounded through the carriage, startling everyone. They turned to see Eames, humming to himself, not looking at the others. He saw them staring at them, stopped humming, and, with all possible innocence and surprise, said, "What? Wrong song?"

The doors opened onto a cubicle farm. They waded through the sea of wage-slaves and found a corner office, which they entered. And what the team found made them stop dead.

Robert Fischer, head of Fischer Enterprises, and only living recipient of artificial idea inception, was sitting at the desk. He looked up upon hearing the door open, and looked at Arthur with a look of near-recognition. He seemed about to remark on it, then turned to Smith. "Thanks, Gerald. I'll take it from here." Smith left, closing the door behind him.

Fischer turned to the team. "My name is Robert Fischer. I own the company that has just hired you. And you," he indicated Ariadne, "look familiar for some reason."

Ariadne, managing to keep her composure, pretended to study the face she knew all too well. "Did you fly from Sydney to L.A. a couple of months ago? Because I think we were in on the same flight."

Fischer looked relieved. "Ah, that's it. I knew I recognized you from somewhere. Anyway, let's get down to business, shall we?" He waved toward some chairs in front of his desk. They all sat down. "Now, let's get the obvious out of the way. You are an extraction team, a group that specializes in subconscious espionage. I have a job for you, involving the retrieval of information out of a person's mind. The pay is considerable. And you have accepted the job.

"Now for the not so obvious: the pay is $5 million apiece, plus expenses. The idea is a formula for a new compound for the PASIV." The team stiffened. The PASIV was the suitcase-disguised device that allowed for shared dreaming. "That got your attention. So should this, then. The mark is a man named John Pembrose."

"No," said Arthur, surprising everyone. "I won't steal from him."

"Who's John Pembrose?" asked Ariadne.

"He's one of the pioneers of shared dreaming, and one of the team that created the PASIV. He later stated that it might be possible to share dreaming without a central dreamer," said Arthur. Ariadne looked shocked.

"Why do you want that?" asked Arthur to Fischer. "I thought you ran an energy company."

"I did, until I dissolved it. All of the subsidiaries have been sold back to themselves. Something I found out while going through our divisions: owning part of the entire energy industry is more than oil rigs power plants. Transport companies, coal mines, machine companies to manufacture equipment and parts, and research companies to keep progress going. I have redesigned the company, and heading in a new direction: technology. We'll have a hand in everything this new millennium works on. Electronics, computers, software, and, in particular, research. I want to advance _everything_. My legacy will permanently affect the world." He finished his speech, nearly working himself into zealous frenzy. He stopped for a moment, breathed, and continued, with considerably more sanity in his voice than before.

"One of the projects a subsidiary is working on is advancements in dream technology. The technology is already out there in a small capacity, and they want to advance it. One of the scientists in the division was John Pembrose."

"Wait, he works for you?" injected Eames. "Why do you need us, then? Just take his notes, like every good boss."

"It's not his notes I want, it's the idea. We think someone got to him. He suddenly quit his job, moved across the country. And he left his work unfinished. I want what's left of the project."

Arthur sank into his chair. The game had just gotten much more complex. Not only was Fischer himself involved, but a member of the pantheon of PASIV had been made a target. And he and his team were the weapon. He now had to decide. Could it be done? Was it worth doing? And what monster had Cobb and he created by planting an idea in this man's mind?


	4. Chapter 4

It wasn't until the three of them walked into the warehouse in Paris that they could speak to one another in private. The meeting had culminated in awkward promises and assurances, and, finally, Arthur had agreed. Fischer then called for Smith, who handed him three plane tickets to Paris, set to leave that day. The team said little on the flight, or the taxi ride to the warehouse. But once there, conversation started in earnest.

"That shouldn't have happened," said Arthur, uncharacteristically upset. "We were hired by the very person we should have avoided at all cost."

"Well, nothing for it now except to do it," added Eames. "Though, did he seem a little… I dunno, _off_ to you?"

"Well, yeah. Cobb said that inception is dangerous because it becomes who you are," said Ariadne. "The concept of building something better than his father's has taken him over."

"It doesn't matter," said Arthur. "We can't do this job. We should just disappear. This feels wrong, the whole thing."

"Still, easy money. Why don't we just do it, and then get the hell out of here?" said Eames. "Might as well, at this point. We told the poor bastard we'd do it."

Arthur paced for a few minutes, fighting himself. Finally, he said, "Okay. Let's just get it over with. Can we agree on minimal contact with Fischer?"

"I thought that was a given. Is it possible to trace Inception?" Ariadne asked.

"I don't know, no one is an expert, and Cobb was the closest to it. We've never seen it happen, but that doesn't mean anything," Arthur answered. "But if it did happen, it would undo the idea. He would remember everything, but I'm guessing it would collapse his self-identity."

"Well, that's not good," said Eames unhelpfully. "Shall we begin, then?"


	5. Chapter 5

The team members were sitting at a table outside a Parisian café. The food was decent, the coffee was excellent, and the planning was going well. Of course, none of them quite knew how they had gotten there in the first place.

The time compression offered by diving made planning on a deadline easier by a wide margin. They had been doing most of their group-work inside, while research was done outside. Arthur had been working for days trying to obtain information about the Mark, as they called him. They sat reviewing the data at a table near a café.

"John Pembrose, 34. Went to Baylor, majored in biochemistry and psychology. Doctorate from same. Part of the original team that created the PASIV system that allows shared dreaming. After helping advance the technology, he posted an essay stating that the experiences created during shared dreams do not need an "architect" dreamer. Went to work for the Burkhart Institute of Human Science as a special projects manager. Company later bought by Fischer Enterprises. That was six weeks ago," read Arthur, referencing some notes. "He dropped off the radar six days ago. That's all public record. The rest, well, isn't."

"He's single, never married. By the looks of it, not really looking. Too busy. He obviously cares about his health, he exercises regularly, watches his weight. His only ties to civilization were his work and his friends, who are as concerned about his current location as us. Authorities think he's gone to Virginia, where his family lived. Problem is, that's a whole state, and no one is looking very hard. I think I might have found him, though."

"Well, spill it, then," said Eames.

"His family lived near Langley. Small town, barely on the map. City is easier to lose yourself in, but easier to track you through. So, he went to ground. I got one of Fischer's techies to hack a security camera at the local bank, and…" He pulled out a large, grainy, black-and-white photo. It showed a tall man with dark hair and a brooding aspect. He might have just blended in with the background if it wasn't for the fact that he was looking directly at the camera. It was him.

"Do we have anything about him we could use as cover for the maze?" asked Ariadne. "Personality, family history, relationships, anything?"

"He likes fast cars, steampunk, books, he's a chess player, and he's good at poker. He's a classic loner, but he does have friends. Eames…" he turned to him.

"Got it. I'll pose as a detective trying to find him, talk a friend of his, and impersonate him inside. Got any names for me?" Arthur handed him a slip of paper. "Hope you have a copy outside, because my memory just isn't what it used to be." Ariadne looked at him pointedly. "Oh, fine, I'll copy it myself."

"Ummm… I see a problem here," said Ariadne. "He helped invent extraction. Won't he find out what's happening?"

"It's a possibility. It's happened before, and if it happens, the best thing to do is shoot yourself, get out of there, and run like hell before he wakes up. Any ideas for the maze, Ari?"

She thought for a minute. "Are any of his friends coworkers? If so, you," she indicated Eames, "can impersonate him, and the level can be built as the lab. He 'builds' the compound, and we have it. Easy enough."

Arthur shifted in his chair. "Sounds like a plan. Ari, I'll call Smith and have him send us pictures of the lab he worked in so you can start building. Eames, most of the people on the list are coworkers. Just pick one. We'll catch him in his house, stick him, and get to work. Sound good?"

Ariadne and Eames murmured their agreement.


	6. Chapter 6

A week later, the team was in a Langley hotel, waiting for the right time. Virginia in summertime is a special kind of muggy and bug-infested. The days are hot and humid; the evening brings insects from seemingly across the country. But here the Mark was hiding, so this is where the team was watching.

Finally, after two days, the phone rang in the room. Arthur answered, spoke for a moment, and hung up. "That was Smith. He hasn't left his house since Thursday. Tomorrow morning, we proceed."

Ariadne slept badly. She still had the ability to dream, but she could almost feel it becoming more difficult. After the first job, she worried that it would be impossible to dream. However, she apparently hadn't done it enough (a four-layer dream, the lowest of which might have been the infamous Limbo itself, wasn't enough?), but now, it was getting worse. Eames slept soundly, snoring enough to fill the room with grating roars. Arthur was perfectly still, leaving little to the imagination. He wasn't asleep, either.

Dawn broke pink and hazy. The team was already awake, gathering belongings and guzzling coffee of questionable quality. They would not be coming back here. Arthur grabbed the briefcase that contained the PASIV, Eames, his disguise, and Ariadne her maps of the maze. They entrusted their sparse luggage to the clerk, and caught a cab to Stafford.

They arrived mid-morning. The cab stopped in front of the local bank, allowing the team to get out. Arthur and Ariadne remained outside while Eames walked in to get a local map. He walked out with the map, and a furious look on his face. "Four dollars for a bloody local map! It's ridiculous! You know these things used to be free?"

"Eames, is he around or not?" asked Arthur.

"Of course he is," said Eames quietly, still fuming about the unexpected expenditure. "He's across the street right now." The other two had the sense not to look over. "And… he appears to be getting in a car."

All was going according to plan. Ariadne crossed the street, heading toward the café Pembrose had just exited. A grey car sat in front of it. She innocently grabbed the spoiler to help herself onto the curb. No one noticed, least of all the Mark.

She was back at the bank in five minutes. "Where were you, then?" asked Eames.

"I was in the café, they have the best croissants this side of the Atlantic," she said, passing pastries around.

"Well, that's great. While you were off getting a snack, the Mark left. We were supposed to follow him!"

"Calm down, we're still following him," said Ariadne. She held up her watch, nearly hitting him in the nose with it. "GPS tracking dot. We can follow him anywhere within a 3-yard radius. Since I bugged the car, that should be close enough."

"What if he takes it off, or washes his car?" asked Arthur, who couldn't keep the impressed look off his face.

"He would have to find it to remove it, which would entail him using a tube-cam on his spoiler. The dot is nearly flat, and it's waterproof."

"You mind saying where you got that?" asked Eames. "Cause you know how I love my toys…"

"Fischer Labs. Don't worry, I got presents for the both of you." She began handing stuff out. "Arthur, you get the semi-automatic hypodermic dart gun. You can fill those darts with anything. Also included is a special fast-acting sedative at no extra charge. Be warned- it is fast-acting, which means it also wears off kinda quick." Arthur examined the device, which looked like a futuristic pistol, impressed.

"Eames, how would you like the script and print analyzer with copy function and full keyboard?" Eames looked like he had just received every birthday present he had ever wanted at once. "You can scan a document, and create a replica with whatever words you want in his or her handwriting. Plus, it scans fingerprints and creates gel copies for use on biometric access panels. And it's easily concealable as a smart-phone. "

"How did you nick it?" asked Eames, near to tears.

"I didn't. I had Fischer's company make them for us. Useful, huh?"

"Okay, adjust our plan for the easy. Let's follow the Mark," said Arthur.


	7. Chapter 7

"Well, this seems to be the place. What next?" asked Ariadne.

"We go in, I tag him with the tranq gun, we hook him up, we dive, and Eames gets the Mark to do the work and grabs it. I kick you out, and we get out of there," said Arthur.

"Nice. Simple, easy to remember. Now, why is it that I have to do all the work?" whined Eames.

"Because you're the forger, and we need someone outside. Got the music cue?" asked Ariadne.

"Yep. Pre-kick is Edith Piaf, trouble is automatic kick." He paused. "Okay, let's go.

They walked carefully to the window of the small, wooden house. Arthur peeked in, and saw Pembrose sitting on a small sofa, reading. And facing the door. Arthur signaled the team to move around for the open window he had seen in the back. They moved silently around the house, and climbed quietly through the window. The Mark's back was turned, he hadn't seen them yet. And he wouldn't.

Arthur raised the gun and pulled the trigger. There was a hiss as the needled dart shot out of the gun. It hit Pembrose in the neck. He jumped up, turned to face the person who shot him, and collapsed.

"That works remarkably well. How long does the sedative work, Ari?" asked Arthur.

"Not long, so let's get moving." Ariadne moved over to the unconscious man on the floor, while Arthur set up the PASIV. He opened the case, punched a few buttons, and handed lines to Ariadne and Eames. They laid down, Arthur needled Pembrose, and then checked to make sure everything was in order, and hit the button.

They were in a hallway. Ari was standing beside a glass door and waited for the Mark. She looked over and saw Eames, or who she assumed was Eames. She saw a man with an average build and short brown hair, but he looked her way and winked. Yes, it was Eames, all right.

The Mark walked down the hallway toward them. He gave a nod to Ariadne, and saw his friend. He walked over to him and said in a rather smooth voice, "Hey, Matt. How's it going today?"

"Not bad. I missed the game yesterday-"

"Well, that sucks. Orioles won, but barely. Bad eighth. Good game though."

"Thanks." Eames chuckled a bit. "Let's get to it, then." He gestured toward the door. Pembrose took the lead and opened the door.

Ariadne followed the team through to the lab. It was small, industrial, and very clean. Equipment lined the counters and walls, and the rest of the space was taken by glass, paper, and computers. The two logged in to the workstations, and started "working". Ariadne walked around the island in the center of the lab to see the screen the Mark was looking at.

It showed some complex chemical formulae and diagrams she didn't understand. She did, however, take mental photographs. Finally, the screen refreshed and showed a list of compounds.

"There. That's the preformula. Matt, are you watching this?" said Pembrose excitedly. "This is it. I've just got to…" He stopped.

He looked around, slight confusion on his face. Slowly, he took something out of his pocket. It looked vaguely like a gyroscope, except the rings were flat inside one another. He set the point on the table, and hit the rings with his finger one by one. Finally, he let go of it. The rings were spinning at different angles to each other, creating a perfect balance of energy. It didn't move off its point by a single degree, and it made a vague whistling whir as it span.

"'It would just spin, and spin, and never stop…'" he said to himself. But Ariadne recognized the words, and the action. They had been had. He knew.

He looked up, and saw Ariadne. "You must be the Architect of this little dream world. But you're not alone…" He turned and saw Eames, now looking like Eames. "Ah. So, you must be the extraction team. Don't bother trying to leave just yet, though," he said as he saw Eames try to pull his gun. "I'm just getting started."

"I won't bother threatening you here. And you can't wake up until time runs out. I just have to ask: Did you really think you could extract secrets from the one who came up with the idea? Plus, I was trained by the best in extracting. Oh, and to erase your misconceptions…" He raised a hand toward the computer, and it flew apart, its pieces floating in midair.

"How are you doing that? This is my dream!" cried Ariadne near to hysterical.

"True, but I'm in it. And I populate it. You created an empty room. I'm simply redecorating." He dropped his hand, and lifted the other. The equipment along the sides of the room exploded into dust which flew around the room. The subconscious projections that populated the lab vanished as well. The cyclone flew at fever pitch, tugging at the only three people left inside.

"You thought you had pulled me into your world. Sorry to tell you this, but you're in my world now. And you're about to leave it." He pushed his hands together, and the room vanished to black.


	8. Chapter 8

One minute to go, and Arthur was nervous.

Extraction was always a team effort, but the Architect rarely participated except in small-team situations. Which, now, they were in. A three-man team is normal, two in, one out. Four-man is nearly a necessity for multiple layers of dream. However, Ari had gone in instead of him.

Yes, she had little experience extracting, but she was the dreamer. Without her inside, the dream would collapse. Arthur could have done it, but Ari had little experience on outside duty. So lost in his worries was he, that he did not hear a small sound of cloth shuffling. He did hear the sound of a pistol being cocked, however.

He didn't move, just slowly turned his head to find Pembrose pointing a .45 handgun to Arthur's head.

"You mind telling me who you work for, and what you were doing messing around in my head?"

"Why are Eames and Ari not awake if you are?" Arthur asked, now thoroughly scared for the safety of his teammates.

"Time hasn't run out," the Mark said, glancing to the briefcase. "I simply prevented them from getting themselves out until time. I thought we could chat a bit." As Pembrose spoke, the PASIV beeped. The button in the middle popped back up, and the number displays all flashed at -00:00-. Then, to Arthur's immense relief, Ari's eyelids fluttered. She then shot up, Eames not far behind.

"Arthur, we gotta get out!" screamed Ariadne. Then she saw Pembrose, awake, and armed. She stopped dead.

"Oh, the architect. And you," he indicated Eames, "must be a Forger. You did pretty good, too."

"How did you know?" asked Ariadne, trying desperately to buy them some time. "You shouldn't have known."

"I switched two of my keyboard keys at work as a joke. The Y and the B. They were in the right places, though. Plus, it helps to keep a totem…" He took out a gyroscope top. "I never let this out of my possession."

Now Arthur was confused. "Wait- I know the man who started that. You were before that, though."

"Now, now, I just can't reveal my secrets to you, after you just tried to steal mine. Now, who do you work for?"

"If we say, will you put the gun down?" asked Eames. "Taking the job was a bad sell from the start."

"It depends. Will you lie to me?"

"Could we come up with something convincing?" responded Arthur. "We don't know why you did what you did. We were actually trying to find that out, along with the formula."

He stopped. "God, Fischer hired you. I should have known that bastard would do something like this. Give me your phone," he said to Ariadne. "Hope you don't care about it too much.

"Throwaway phone," she said, handing it to him. He put his gun up, dialed a number, and put it on speakerphone. It rang for a few seconds, then was picked up.

"This is Robert Fischer, who's calling?"

"This is Jack Pembrose. You hired me, refused to accept a resignation, and then sent an extraction team after me. If you wanted my attention, you could have just sent a note."

Fischer remained silent for a few moments, and then said, "Why did you leave? I'm not quite as greedy or obsessed as you might believe, and I might have understood. But you wouldn't say. So, I had to find out the hard way."

"And make sure I finished my work whether it was for good or not," Pembrose finished, face impassive. "Okay, I'll tell you. I was being hunted."

This took everyone by surprise. "By who?" asked Ariadne.

"The team is still there?" said a surprised Fischer.

"Why would they want… never mind" said Eames.

"To answer your questions in no particular order, yes the team is still here, I don't know who was stalking me, or what they would have done if they got hold of me. I didn't want to find out, though," said Pembrose.

No one said anything in response. Arthur, who hadn't spoken at all since this had started, was now wondering what to do with this information. The options didn't look that good all told, but there were a few: 1.) Take the team, quit the job, find an easier one, and make some money. 2.) Run like hell and try to extract from Pembrose again. And 3.) Continue the job, find out who is hunting Pembrose, and collect on this job. Honestly, Option 1 looked pretty good.

"What do you want, Fischer? Do you want me to finish, at the cost of my livelihood and possibly my life? Do you want to just give up what I have?" asked Pembrose.

"I really don't like those choices. So, here's what I want. I want you to finish your work, but I also want it to continue. I'm sure you want similar, otherwise you wouldn't be working in the first place. So, I'm going to solve all our problems," said Robert Fischer, issuing from the phone.

This didn't sound very good. He was very confident, like he had some severe spending power, and not just money. Of course, when you're the head of a multinational technology conglomerate, your head might just be rather large in proportion to the size of your body. When Pembrose replied, he wasn't entirely sold, either. "Just how do you plan to do that?"

The answer would go on to change everything.


	9. Chapter 9

"I'm not sold on this, Pembrose," said Arthur.

"Oh, please, call me Jack. Everyone does. Besides, you guys have been messing around in my head enough for you to have the right. I'm still not happy about that."

"It was nothing _personal_, darling. Just a job," said Eames.

"I know we don't want to do this, but don't we have to?" asked Ariadne. "We still have to find out why he ran. That was part of the job, wasn't it?"

"And now we know. So why are we still here?" said Arthur.

"Because you were ordered to as an extension of the job you were hired for. You would have left already if it was any other way, and you know it." responded Jack. "Now, do I have your help? I can't do this without a team."

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"I'm in on one condition, Jack," said Ariadne. "I want you to teach me that trick. You know, the one where you _took over my dreamworld_?"

Pembrose said nothing, taking stock of the situation. Finally he said, "Alright, you all have questions you want answered, as do I. Let's make a deal. How about, you find me the answers to my questions, and I'll give you answers to yours. How does that work?"

"Well, I'm fine with it, personally," said Ariadne. "What about you guys?"

Eames shrugged noncommittally, completely to form. Arthur, however, hesitated. "And if you don't like our questions? What then?"

"Fair enough, but then, you guys are already helping me remove a huge problem, so I think I'll answer even if your questions get a bit personal or secretive. That work for you?"

Arthur sighed. "Fine. Let's get done with it, shall we? Okay, we're going to need some information about your stalker..."


	10. Chapter 10

"Okay, here's what I know," said Pembrose, now sitting in the Paris warehouse. "He's an extractor, he works solo, and his name is Jaqard."

"Whoa, wait up there," piped in Eames. "I've met an extractor named Jaqard. He's from the Near Middle East, if memory serves. I've worked with him." Everyone stared at him. "What? I made some documents for him once. He paid well enough. We were in Sarajevo at the time. That's all I know. Seriously."

"What's his specialty? Does he have one?" asked Arthur. "Dom and I used to do high-risk runs. My first partner was big on elaborate dreamscapes. Do you know anything about this guy's methods?"

Jack turned to him. "All I know is that he's brutal. He does everything by force, which is quick, effective, and easy if you're good at it. And he is. He tried to get me two weeks ago. I was in my apartment, and he got me into a PASIV. You guys were subtle with your dream. You got pretty far. He wasn't. His dream consisted of a street at night, a taxi, and questioning at gunpoint."

"What was the clue with him?" asked Eames.

"I saw the same building four times in a row without us turning. His architect must have been pretty lazy. Anyway, I realized I was in a dream, and my subconscious tore him apart. I don't think he'll make that same mistake again."

"Who's to say that he'll try? Usually, trying to extract from someone after you've failed is an even riskier operation than the first. He might not be so anxious to repeat failure."

"Oh, no, not this one. He'll keep going until he gets it or he's dead. He's a pit bull who only barely listens to whatever poor individual holds his leash temporarily." Jack looked dark.

"How do you know that? You said you only met him briefly," said Ariadne.

"You can tell a lot about a man by their methods," said Arthur. "Take Cobb for example. His structure of command, using things he says never to do, taking risks, keeping secrets. He usually works alone or with a small group. Also, anxiety issues because of Mal. I knew most of that before you told me what happened in Limbo," said Arthur.

Pembrose froze. "You worked with Dominic Cobb?"

The whole room turned tight and tense.

"Well, some unexpected revelations. You worked with Cobb, you stole with him, one of you at least ended up in Limbo somehow, and Cobb must be either dead, comatose, or retired."

"How d'you know that?" asked Eames. "He could still be going, for all we know."

"Not the Cobb I know. He knew the risks of that business, and tended to keep his team when practical. I lost touch with him after Mal died, but I worked with Cobb when shared dreaming was in its infancy.

"There were a team of us- Martine d'Gaus, a psychologist specializing in dream science; myself, specializing in psychochemistry; Dominic Cobb and his wife, Malorie, who did most of the physical testing; Mal's father Miles, architect; and Rocia Alviano, technical engineer. With financial backing from NATO, we worked on a virtual-reality simulation that relied on 'passive consciousness', or the ability to dream lucidly. We quickly realized that it wasn't very useful unless people could share it, so I developed a chemical that allows for synchronized brain function- shared dreaming.

"It wasn't very good at first, but we developed it quickly. The Cobbs were invaluable to our research, because they tested everything, with every possibly variable. They were very good, and were eventually able to bring us in, showing the other four of us how it worked from the inside. After that point, NATO was satisfied with the results and began using to train its forces. It wasn't enough for us, though.

"The project grabbed us, in ways none of us expected. Now that the technology is more widespread (if still in its niche), we were able to continue working on it, refining it. Some didn't. Apparently, it drove Mal insane. I never got the details. Her death made Cobb run, upon learning that the authorities blamed him. Miles returned to Paris, teaching architecture. Alviano has moved on to other things, but still updates the PASIV system in her spare time. Martine, well, he's my boss.

"And the rest is history. From what I gather, Cobb was one of the founding extractors, along with ex-military engineers who sold the technology to black markets. So, what happened?"

"He's retired. He went home to his children after our last job. It was enough to fix his charges and get him home. Her death and his guilt nearly drove him out of his mind. It came close to ripping our last mission apart. And it was a hard one," said Arthur.

"What job was it?"

"Inception."


	11. Chapter 11

"Well you can't just leave it at that. Who did you plant?" asked Pembrose.

"It's best you not know that. Your overlarge head might explode," said Eames, trying to cut the line of conversation that had popped up.

"It's just that some of it is secrets left for others to tell. Besides, some of that information is best not shared with anyone, much less someone in your position," said Arthur.

"What the hell do you mean, 'someone in my position'! I've told you everything! Why won't you tell me that?"

"But you haven't. You told us how you and Cobb knew each other, and we told you that our last job was a supposedly impossible one. Quid pro quo. Now, if you tell us how you're able to do what you do, then maybe we'll give you some more info," tempted Ariadne. "Or maybe what you're actually working on."

Jack Pembrose is not a person to bargain with on the best of circumstances, and semantic trickery was even worse. He tried to hold his temper in check as he contemplated his next move. "Congratulations, you have succeeded in playing me like a good little violin. No longer. This time, why don't you start providing some information? Then I'll answer."

Ariadne huffed. "Okay, what if I tell you what we planted and how, and you tell us what you were working on? Will that work for now?"

"Ari…" warned Arthur.

"We won't get anywhere by keeping secrets. We need what he knows, this gets it. I'll sacrifice a new trick for him not knowing about that particular target," whispered Ariadne.

Jack thought for a moment. He then turned and said, "I'm listening."

"Okay. We had ten hours. We used a special compound with a sedative. There were seven of us- Cobb, Arthur-his point man, myself, the chemist, Eames-as you know, a forger, a tourist, and the Mark."

"Wait- the mark was a team member?"

"Wait for me to finish. There were three intended levels. In the first, we planted some numbers and started eroding a personal relationship. We then brought the mark down a level, where we ran a gambit involving turning the Mark against his own militarized subconscious. He joined our team and tried to 'extract' from a projection, when in reality we dove into Eames, where we planted a room in which he would give himself the idea. There were some complications, but that's how we did it. The idea was to make him break apart his company. He since has. We completed a successful inception."

Pembrose was silent for a moment. "Okay, that was a good bit of information. Now, for what you want. But, you've been asking the wrong question. It's not what I'm working on. It's what I _was_ working on."

"You've finished it?" asked Eames. "Why are you being hunted for it then?"

"Because I haven't finalized it yet. It's still just a formula in my head. I deleted all the data after the first extraction attempt. They want it."

"So, what is it? What's this big secret that they want? What did you create?" asked Arthur.

"I created Tabula Rasa."


	12. Chapter 12

"Okay, very funny. Now be honest- what were you working on?" asked Arthur, disappointment etched on his face.

"I'm not lying or avoiding. I created a stable Tabula Rasa," Jack rebutted.

"Okay, could someone tell me what that is?" asked Ariadne.

"Tabula Rasa is another kind of shared dreaming. It's been tried before, with little success. I thought work on it was largely halted," said Eames.

"It was. I was in the minority who still believed it possible. It just needed stability."

Ariadne was confused. "I still don't know what it is."

"A Tabula Rasa is a completely shared dream- no one dreamer, no subjects. Everyone is equal in the dreamspace," said Pembrose.

"But there are a lot of problems with that scenario," injected Arthur. "For instance, everyone can create the world as they want, but it rarely meshes well. Also, it's ridiculously unstable. You've seen what happens to a dream when the dreamer leaves. Imagine that from the start, and never stopping."

"It was the first kind of shared dreaming, before we realized that having a central dreamer was much more stable. But, it has its limits," said Pembrose. "Only one person can create, and one person populates it. Projections are useful, but they can get in the way. Also, it allows for a good training space for dream divers, or for any other activity for that matter."

"So, you figured it out? That sounds pretty cool. Can we see it?" Ariadne looked excited.

"I know how to make it, I don't have it. I need more equipment than can fit in my home office, you know."

"Gentlemen, lady, calm down," said Eames, holding his hands up. "I have just received a boatload of good ideas that can all work. Now, hear me out. This might just solve our problems, but we need to make a few calls."


	13. Chapter 13

"I don't think the words exist to describe how bad an idea this is."

"Well, I didn't hear any better from you, Ariadne" said Eames.

"At least nothing I came up with _risked our death_ like this! And YOU-" she pointed at Arthur, "WHY did you follow him?"

"Lack of other options," said Arthur in an exasperated tone. "We need resources that we don't have if we're going to do this."

They were standing in the high, airy lobby of the corporate offices of Fischer-Morrow in Sydney. The bright Australian sun reflected off of the glass and black marble and made the room breathe light. It seemed to Ariadne, with her architect's eye, that the room was meant to both erase tension and impart a sense of grand scale. The scale part worked, at least.

"I'm sorry, I still don't understand your problem with him," Jack said, nonplussed. "I mean, you're willingly working for him, after all. What's the problem with meeting him?"

"Look, dear," Eames said, ignoring Pembrose completely, "I like it less than you do. I feel like every time he looks at me he's drilling into my skull, trying to figure out why I look familiar. But we need his contacts, we need access to the labs, and a safe place to rehearse the burn and to learn Tabula. Where else can we go for that?"

"That I understand, it's why we can't do this over the phone-" She cut herself off when a receptionist walked over to them.

"Excuse me, Mr. Fischer is waiting for you in his office, on level 51. Please use the lift behind the reception desk."

And so, with everyone completely unsatisfied with the situation, they entered the elevator and spent the long ride up in tense silence. The doors opened onto a floor of open offices with people working at their desks, all focused toward an aisle that ran straight to a set of mahogany double doors. As they stepped out a man opened the doors. "Come in- he's waiting."

With much reservation, they entered the absurdly spacious office, which was lorded over by the desk of CEO Robert Fischer. He stood up to greet them. "Good, you're here. Let's talk business. Have a seat, please." He gestured to several chairs, and they all sat down. "So, what all do you need, what will you do with it, and how will this help us?"

Pembrose began. "Sir, the general plan is to find Jaqard and pull him into a standard extraction. From that point, we will actually use that dream as an opportunity to use a Tabula Rasa to go into his memories and 'burn' all memories of me, his mission, and his employers out of his mind entirely. We copy that information to find his employers and eventually confront them, on whatever appropriate level."

Fischer thought a moment. "I'll be honest, I didn't really understand much of what that was, I'm only familiar with the basics of extraction. I honestly thought that what you just described was impossible."

"Not with Tabula Rasa. It's a remarkably versatile form, and can be turned toward nearly anything. That's what you wanted when you bought our little operation- a total paradigm shift in shared dreaming. Well, this is it."

Fischer nodded. "Seems a good plan as any for getting rid of this problem without a body count. So, what do you need?"

Arthur answered, keeping his tone formal businesslike. "We need to have access to Pembrose's labs, under constant guard. We need a place to practice the techniques we're going to be using, also under guard. And we need more information on Jaqard. You must have sources that can give us at least a general dossier and a way to track his movements. That's the hard part."

"Given what we've been told so far, it shouldn't be too hard to find him. Remember- Jack is a significant investment that I'm willing to protect."

"So, is that all of it, then?" asked Eames in an attempt to bring the meeting to a close. "We've got a rather lot to do in a very short amount of time."

"I'll be honest, this is strange, but when I look at you, I think of snow for some reason." This comment, apropos of nothing, confused Pembrose, who remembered Fischer as a man of near-myopic drive. Offhand statements never came from him. Everyone else in the room froze in place, though. Fischer didn't notice it, but Pembrose did.

Eames, meanwhile, tried to steer away from that particularly sticky area. "I honestly have no clue. I don't think we've met, and I hate the snow. Anyway, can we-" 

"I apologize, but it won't leave my mind. You might have mentioned a flight but I never remember people I don't talk to. I must have met the three of you before..." Fischer's eyes became distant, as he tried to recall. "Something about my father... and... Uncle Peter..." He was fighting his memory, in an attempt to figure out the pattern, but Pembrose had it already.

"Fischer was your target." The team looked at him in horror, but it was too late. "Fischer was the one you got to break up his company. He's the man you performed Inception on."

Fischer looked back and forth between Arthur and Pembrose, his face mingling confusion and terror. He knew what inception was. And Ariadne thought, _what now?_


	14. Chapter 14

Fischer stared at them, his mind starting to put together vague memories of a dream long forgotten. He focused finally on Arthur. "It's true, isn't it? That day on the plane, after Dad died. What did you do?"

Ariadne thought fast. Lying wouldn't work, but coming clean was risky at best. They still didn't know what undoing inception would cause. That said, he already knew at least part of it. Wouldn't it be better for him to know the rest? Well, with some provisos. Without support and to the horror of Arthur and Eames, she began to explain.

"Several months ago, Dominic Cobb and his team were hired to plant an idea in your mind. The specifics of the operation aren't important, but the idea we planted was pretty simple- "I will break up my father's empire". From what I can tell, it seems to have worked."

"But," he stammered, "everything in my company for the past few months, since that trip, was falsely induced corporate espionage?"

"That depends on what you've done. Our employer at the time just wanted you to dissolve the massive energy conglomerate. Everything else either flowed naturally from that idea or was just you running the business," said Arthur, catching on to the idea at hand- tell him what was needed, nothing more.

"Okay..." said Fischer, trying to keep his composure, "who hired you?"

Arthur stepped in with businesslike efficiency. "That information is not necessary at this point. It's long done and over, there would be little point in reprisals at this point. Anyway, he seems to have done you a favor. Your company is doing better than in decades."

Fischer was not, in fact, satisfied with that answer. "I have to know!" he shouted. "Who would do that? Who was so threatened by..." He trailed off, thoughtful for a second. Then, nearly under his breath, he said one word: "Saito."

"Excuse me?" asked Pembrose.

Fischer started, as if he forgot Pembrose was there. "Saito was a Far East competitor who was near collapse when I restructured the empire. He must have been the one that hired those men to... to- _violate_ me like that."

Ariadne was suddenly disgusted with herself. She hadn't thought of extraction in that manner, as a rape of the mind. Obviously, Fischer did, and not without reason. Then she realized... "That's what you built Tabula Rasa for. To end this kind of abuse of shared dreaming."

"Very good. It's incredibly difficult to trick someone into an extraction in Tabula, and impossible to fake inspiration as in an inception. It's just raw, unfocused creation and illusion, locked into a stable field."

"Uh, I hate to break this up, but I would like to know why I shouldn't have you all arrested for corporate espionage right now? Save for Jack, obviously."

Eames, after sitting back to watch the battle, spoke up. "First off, it'd be a bugger for the legal system to deal with. Second, Saito hired us for the same reason you did: we're the best and we have few loyalties."

"I think I'll contest the 'best' part," injected Pembrose looking slightly insulted.

"In other words," Arthur continued, "we have little loyalty to Saito, save for professional interests. Or to you, for that matter. However, you did hire us and to breach that contract, informal as it was, would be a conflict of interests at best and we had no intention of doing so. Just remember that we have always been and will probably always remain free agents and our services are available to anyone with the money and the proper job. Don't get upset that you found out we did a job with a competitor of yours, because now we're doing one for you."

"That is literally the most I've ever heard you speak," said Eames.

"The problem isn't the fact that Saito hired you, it's that you _put things in my head_! I think I'm entitled to some trepidation here," said Fischer.

"Sir, with all due respect," said Pembrose, "at this juncture, my advice would be to suck it up and deal. It's too late in the game to find another team, and one this good is hard to come by. We can deal with the issue of what they've done to you at a later date. For now, let's just find Jaqard, find his employer, and end this. What do you say?"

Fischer thought a moment, while the team waited with bated breath as the man behind the desk decided their fate. Finally he spoke.

"You're right. We can have this conversation when I've got the facts and my memories of the event straight. For now, let's get this resolved. Whatever it is you need, you've got it."


	15. Chapter 15

None of them spoke until they were safely in the elevator. Once they were a couple of floors down, Arthur reached across and pushed the stop button, and the elevator shuddered to a halt.

"Do you mind telling me," said Arthur, furious, "why you had to do that? To risk us like that?"

"Actually, it was many things. First off, I have a great deal of respect for him and what he's done recently, and I felt he had a right to know about the people he was working with. Second, simple curiosity- I wanted to see what happens when someone who's been given an artificial idea is, after some time, able to trace its genesis. It's never been seen or done before."

"Nice. Well, thank you for that, but we have enough terror in our lives without your help," said Eames shortly. "Do you know what'll happen to him now?"

"I know him well enough to know that he's both very private and hates showing weakness. He probably hurried us out of his office so he could have his mental breakdown in peace."

"Do you think that will happen?" asked Ariadne, concern on her face and in her voice. "I tried to keep as much of the peripheral of our methods out of the story as possible..."

"And I think that it helped," Pembrose said. "I caught that bit about Maurice, by the way. I think that he was central to the job. Did you steer him into giving himself the idea?"

Arthur replied. "Yeah, that was the only way it could work. He had to, with some help, inspire himself or the idea wouldn't stick."

"There's a caveat to that, though," said Pembrose darkly. "Something like that, artificial, doesn't come with a limiter. All ideas have a point where it stops being the original idea, and our minds can see that and identify it. With inception, such limits aren't present and can lead to pathological behavior such as psychotic obsession. We did some work on this at the genesis project, but we decided that, upon the original projections, it wasn't worth the risk of testing."

Arthur was still fuming, but was able to keep his voice level. "So, do you think he'll keep his end of the bargain without jeopardizing this?"

"As long as your safety ties to mine, and as long as his state doesn't change, then yes. As soon as things change, I have no clue. I don't know how Mr. Fischer will handle this, or if we can help him. If it helps, I have no animosity toward you for it, that's just business."

"It doesn't, but thank you for the lovely thought," said Eames bitterly.

Ariadne reached over and pushed the stop button again to start the elevator running again. "So, what now?"

Pembrose gave a sardonic half-grin. "We train, we wait, and when everything lines up, we strike."

Eames smiled with the thought of action. "Sounds fun, where do we start?"

"I'll teach you the dream-jack, and we all learn Tabula Rasa. When we have more information, we'll factor that in. But I'll warn you- using Tabula will be like going back to the absolute basics for all of us. We're about to break all the rules and make up some more as we go along. Sound fun to any of you?"

"Sure. I hope you have a totem, because I've seen someone loose track of reality, and it's not pretty," said Ariadne.

"You guys have really seen a lot of some serious subconscious issues, haven't you?"

"Like you can't imagine," responded Ariadne, looking haunted.

"Oh, I can imagine quite a bit. You, however," he indicated Ariadne, "saw something that still gives you nightmares. Shared dreaming still scares you a bit, doesn't it?"

"Lets just say I've seen the dark side. Repressed memories, violent guilt turned to self-destructive self-conscious, Limbo-"

The elevator opened, and Ariadne fell silent. Pembrose was forced to walk out of the elevator behind her, stunned into silence by her words and unable to ask questions until they were in a more private location. They all had questions, and answers were looking more and more hard to come by. But two still remained out of reach:

_Who is after Jack Pembrose's secret? And why did they want it so badly?_


	16. Chapter 16

"Okay, class, we'll begin today's lesson with some definitions," lectured Pembrose, standing in front of a group of chairs in which sat Arthur, Eames, and Ariadne. They were on one side of a workshop space, along with a whiteboard, a projector, and some lab equipment. The far side of the room was a jumbled mess of lounge chairs, medical detritus, and yet more lab equipment. "Ariadne," he pointed to her, "what is the definition of dream sharing?"

Ariadne thought a moment, then said, "The process by which a group of people can artificially induce a dream in the same space?"

"Close, but not quite right. How about you, Scruffy?" he indicated Eames, complete with two days worth of beard growth.

"Ummm... a shared hallucination that someone builds and manipulates?" he said, stabbing the dark.

"Also very close, but still not quite right," said Pembrose in full teacher mode. "Dream sharing is a mentally constructed and shared virtual reality, built to resemble reality, and only alterable by the creator, and even then at risk. However, there are limitations. Care to elaborate, Arthur?"

Arthur, already peeved at Pembrose's superior attitude, glared at him, but answered, "It has to have a host, occasional sub-security, projections, lack of alteration ability, and more human issues such as rogue projections and confusion with reality. Also it becomes unstable if you try to do multiple layers. I've seen and dealt with all of that," added Arthur.

"Very good," responded Pembrose. "Sorry for the lecture, but I had to clarify normal shared dreaming. Because Tabula Rasa, it's a whole different ball game."

"So, how would you 'define it', as you said?" injected Arthur.

Pembrose gave a half-smile and thought a moment. "A true dream shared by those brought in with you."

Ariadne was confused. "But that's not how dreams work. They're strange and shifty and impossible. Even when you know you're dreaming, things don't work right. Shared dreaming is at least comprehensible," said Ariadne.

"Which is why Tabula Rasa is dangerous. It can be used 'on' someone, just like normal PASIV dreams, but it's still very intense. It's unstable, but it can't fall apart because it's never together to begin with," said Pembrose.

"Well, then," responded Eames, "how in hell are we supposed to use it? It sounds like a bad idea to begin with."

"I think I know where this is going," said Arthur. "Even with that, it's still shared dreaming. It wouldn't be if we had no control over it. Do I have it?" he asked Pembrose.

"You have it indeed, Arthur. The footing is loose and shifting, but you can still dance once you know how. No architect, anyone connected can change it at will. Anything that can be imagined, and a lot that can't be, is possible. Likely, for that matter."

"Then, how can it be used for extraction?" asked Eames, now frustrated with the direction this conversation has taken. "If we can't move through his subconscious, if we can't build him a place to hide hide his secrets or projections to talk to, how are we going to find anything?"

"Because we're not trying to extract from him, we're trying to do a burn job," said Pembrose.

"Huh?" said Ariadne. The three of them looked around at each other, wondering if the other knew what that meant. Pembrose looked confused for a moment, then realized the problem. "I haven't told you guys what that means yet, have I?"

"No, you haven't. Please continue," said Arthur, voice dripping with irritation and condescension.

"Okay, a 'burn job' is the removal of certain memories or ideas from a person. Unlike extraction, which gives you a look, burning is meant to completely remove the idea, any memory from someone's mind. The brain then fills in the gaps naturally."

Eames took the lead. "How are we going to do this? No one ever has, and no one has ever tried to find out how."

Pembrose pointed to the other side of the workshop. "Well, that's what we're here to find out. Let's try it out."


	17. Chapter 17

Six weeks.

Six weeks, learning how to use Tabula Rasa competently enough to do a job with it.

"_Lesson one: find the prize and wake yourself up"_

_Arthur, Eames, and Ariadne climbed up and down a strange, shifting maze of stairways that moved in all directions, through walls and columns that never ended. Eventually, Eames managed to find the gold statue on a pedestal in the center of a room, but no matter what he did, no stairway reached it. He finally realized his mistake, and simply moved toward the statue, a staircase creating itself underneath his feet and as he grabbed the statue, the world started to break apart._

Six weeks, trying to unlearn everything they had ever been taught about extraction.

"_The trick is forcing yourself up to the architect's level of control. Once you do that, you basically take over the dream. If you're the target, your projections vanish, since you're conscious for all intents and purposes."_

"_Wouldn't that be insanely dangerous?" asked Ariadne in reply. "You would rip apart the dream."_

"_Yep. That's why I only do it when I'm trying to collapse the dream anyway. I'm basically forcing a network shutdown, to put it in computer terms. During the shutdown, though, you can change anything. Sure, it doesn't last long, but it's effective. Plus, you can put the extractors in stasis until the timer runs out, giving you time to escape. The plan depends on this."_

Six weeks, creating a plan that would work against a skilled extractor.

_That night, Arthur dreamed. In the time around an extraction job, you end up pumped full of somnacin, making it near-impossible to have a dream without help. The only real cure is time, which he hadn't had. But since they had started working with Tabula Rasa, he had dreamed nearly every night. Somehow, it had cured his somnacin withdrawal. He reminded himself to ask Pembrose about that. It might also have been making his dreams really weird._

_He dreamed of a golden field under a warm green sun, while a shifting sky fell around him. He flew with angels that told him stories that he promptly forgot upon waking, but they sounded so beautiful. He turned to ask the angels to tell more stories, but why? The hotel didn't staff _angels_, surely. He checked with the front desk for messages, but there were none. There were always none._

_He woke to a smiling Pembrose, who handed him a cup of coffee. "Perfect run. I doubt you knew we were there. You fought us pretty hard, though."_

"_Well, at least we know it works, even when it's expected," said Arthur, taking a long draw from the cup. "Let's run through the plan again this afternoon, once I get that intel back on Jacquard."_

Six weeks, waiting on word from Fischer's men about Jacquard and his movements.

_They sat around a table in the wide space they had been working in, pouring through file after file of movement information, passenger manifests, psych reports, and photograph after photograph from security cameras. "According to this," said Arthur after a few hours, "he'll be on a plane from Paris to Rabat in about two weeks. We'll have to be on the same plane, but with the plane as full as it is, we'll have to be pretty creative with the PASIV to get to him."_

"_Why is it that major jobs are always on planes?" asked Ariadne._

"_Mostly," said Eames, "because people are always falling asleep on trains or whatnot, and they make it a bit easier for anonymity. We also use surgery, but that's not really an option here."_

"_Well, we can use the dart. Low profile, no messy cord, he'll just fall asleep," said Pembrose. There was a general noise of agreement._

At the end of the six weeks, and ten days before the job was to take place, a messenger in a business suit knocked on the door of the workshop and told them that they were wanted by Fischer himself.


End file.
